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Inspired by the success of preschool in these states, advocates, foundation leaders, and business allies built a movement for universal preschool. Rather than continuing to push for the expansion of targeted programs like Head Start, they shifted to a universal strategy, believing that a program that served middle‐class families would ultimately build more enduring political support. The involvement of the Pew Charitable Trusts served as a catalyst, pouring funding into selected state campaigns, bringing together different constituencies across the country, and focusing unprecedented attention on pre‐kindergarten as a solution to educational and social problems. Support for expanding preschool relied on a strong research base that documented the promise of preschool for improving the life chances of disadvantaged children. But the movement's vision of providing “preschool for all” was challenged, both by those who preferred to target scarce resources to the neediest children, and by critics who feared increasing government's role in raising children in general.

This chapter addresses the questions of school productivity and educational input standards in terms of accountability. How effective are input-driven educational policies in improving academic growth and narrowing achievement gaps? What types of interventions are more cost-effective for disadvantaged minority students? The trends of increased public educational expenditures vis-à-vis small student achievement gains raise questions about the productivity of schooling. The average effect size of input-driven interventions, such as class size reduction and after-school tutoring was modest, whereas effects tend to be relatively larger for targeted interventions among disadvantaged, low-achieving, and younger students. Although achievement gains from early inventions tend to decay over time, they can make long-term impacts on improving students’ educational attainment and career success. The evidence supports P-16 education policies such as universal preschool and early college programs that can help fix the broken education pipeline and make for seamless educational transitions.

The concept of social exclusion has been central to New Labour's social policy since its election in 1997. The Sure Start programme, announced in 1998 and expanded by 2004 to include 400,000 children under four and their families, has been a central element in the government's long-term strategy to prevent social exclusion by breaking the cycle that plays a significant part in its (re)production. This chapter looks at how the problem of the intergenerational reproduction of social exclusion has been conceptualised by the New Labour governments and how this is reflected in policy. It examines the evolving policy interventions since 1997 with parents of preschool children designed to ‘break the cycle’, and what this conceptualisation of social exclusion and the policies associated with it leave out. The initial announcement in 1998 was for a programme of 250 Sure Start Local Programmes in areas of high deprivation. Sure Start has been transformed from an early intervention policy to the provision of universal preschool services that integrate health, education, advice and support in Sure Start children's centres across the United Kingdom.